Whether you've got the flu or you've just got a hankering, chicken soup is delicious, healthy, and easy to prepare. This endlessly-customizable recipe is hearty addition to any meal or a great centerpiece dish in its own right. Serves about 6.

Check the internal cavity. Some chickens have their gizzards, neck, and/or other organs stuffed into their chest cavity. If this is the case with your chicken, be sure to remove these before proceeding, though it's unlikely that you would accidentally add them to the soup.

Trim excess fat. Use a sharp knife, a pair of kitchen shears, or your bare hands to remove the loose, excess fat at the base of the chicken's torso. If put in the soup, this loose fat becomes a gross surprise for whoever is unlucky enough to eat it.

Remove the legs. Pull each leg out from the body and remove it with a sharp knife. Once removed, you may want to divide the thigh from the drumstick by cutting along the "fat line" that marks the joint between the leg and thigh.

Remove the wings. Similar to how you removed the legs, pull each wing out from the body and cut it away from the torso with a sharp knife. Cut the wing in half at the joint and discard the smaller "tip" portion.

Cut up the breast. Use a sawing motion to remove the breast from the ribs (for safety purposes, cut back to front). Spread the breast out on a cutting board and separate it from the bone by making lengthwise cuts along either side of its center. Double check each breast after cutting to ensure there are no remaining bones or fragments.

At this point, you may chop the breasts into halves, quarters, or as many pieces as you'd like.

7

Place chicken pieces in a large stock pot. When you've cut as much chicken meat as you'd like, simply add it to a large pot and you're done. If you'd prefer, you can also remove the skin, though this isn't essential.

Part 2

Brewing the Soup

1

Add water to cover, salt, and bay leaf. Add enough water to cover all of your chicken, but don't feel the need to over-do it - if your soup is too thick, you can always add more water later, while waiting for a watery soup to reduce is time-consuming.

Allow to simmer about 2 1/4 hours. Your goal is to make the chicken meat so soft that it falls off the bone. As your soup simmers, periodically check on it to ensure that the chicken is cooking nicely and to skim any froth off the top of the pot.

Strain soup, saving the broth. Strain your soup into another pot or similar container so that you retain the broth. Remove chicken meat from the bone, discarding any unappetizing pieces. When finished, return broth, chicken, and vegetables to the pot and serve.

Optionally, place cooked noodles or rice in bowl and add soup. To recreate a bowl of classic childhood "chicken noodle soup", simply add cooked noodles (or rice) to your soup. Pasta and rice take less time to cook than your soup takes to make, so you can prepare them while your soup is simmering with ample time to spare.